


The Beginning And The End

by badly_knitted



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Community: fic_promptly, Episode: 2006 Xmas The Runaway Bride, Episode: 2007 Xmas Voyage of the Damned, Ficlet, Gen, Season/Series 04, Tenth Doctor Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-05
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2018-02-20 00:04:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2407823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badly_knitted/pseuds/badly_knitted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Donna Noble, from entrance to exit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beginning And The End

**Author's Note:**

> Written for juliet316’s prompt ‘Doctor Who, author's choice, beginnings and endings’ at fic_promptly.
> 
> **Spoilers:** The Runaway Bride and all of Season 4, including Voyage of the Damned.

It begins with a stroppy redhead in a wedding dress suddenly materialising in the TARDIS.

He's not happy to see her, too busy missing Rose to want any kind of companionship, but that's okay because she's _really_ not happy to be there and makes her displeasure clear in a very strident voice. Everything about Donna Noble is loud, but there’s something about her, something… uncompromising.

She’s smart and brave with a warm and generous heart, and she didn’t deserve to be used like that, as a convenient receptacle for Huon particles. It’s left her hurting the same way he is, but she helps him save the world from the Queen of the Racnoss and her young anyway. She’s the kind of woman who finishes what she starts. Almost against his will, he finds himself liking her. He’s not ready for her kind of blunt honesty though. Maybe they both need time to heal.

He runs into her again after Martha, after the Titanic and Astrid who learned to fly on her own, and now Donna is exactly what he needs. She keeps him honest, sets him straight when he goes off course, tells him he’s an idiot. Frequently. And best of all? She doesn’t fancy him! It’s surprising how good that feels. They’re mates, plain and simple, and travelling with her is _fun!_

They have crazy adventures on other worlds and in different times, because that’s what he does; shows his chosen companion the wonders that are out there, widens their horizons. Okay, so there’s a fair bit of showing off in there too, but that’s half the fun. Anyway, if he starts getting too cocky, he can count on Donna to cut him down to size again. Sometimes you’d swear she’s the nine hundred plus year old, the way she tells him off. She’s usually right too. His admiration for her grows daily.

Then they save the universe from the Daleks, with a little help from his friends, and in the process something happens that never should have; Donna becomes a human Time Lord metacrisis. There’s never been one before simply because such a thing can’t exist.

The Doctor Donna is brilliant! Donna’s always had so much untapped potential and now she shines so bright it hurts to look at her. His greatest pain comes from knowing that it will kill her; the human mind is just not equipped to hold so much knowledge. A Time Lord’s consciousness is too big to fit into such a primitive brain. She’s brilliant and he has to take all that away from her, all that and more. All the memories of the fantastic things she’s seen and the amazing things she’s done; all her memories of him. Something deep inside him breaks. For one shining moment she was the most important woman in the whole wide universe, and she can never remember. She’s back to who she was before: Donna Noble, SuperTemp, but the universe has a long memory, and so does he. She won’t be forgotten; somewhere the Ood still sing songs about her, and they’re not the only ones. It has to be enough.

It starts one sunny Christmas Day and it ends in pouring rain, and somehow that’s fitting because it hides his tears.

 

The End


End file.
